In the valiant land of Algeria, hosted by its people and
its President Chedli Benjedid, the Palestine National Council held its nineteenth
extraordinary session  the session of the intifada and independence, the session of
the martyred hero Abu Jihad  in the period between 12 and 15 November 1988.

This session culminated in the announcement of the rise of
the Palestinian state in our Palestinian land, the natural climax of a daring and
tenacious popular struggle that started more than seventy years ago and was baptised in
the immense sacrifices offered by our people in our homeland, along its borders, and in
the camps and other sites of our diaspora.

The session was also distinguished by its focus on the
great national Palestinian intifada as one of the major milestones in the contemporary
history of the Palestinian peoples revolution, on a par with the legendary
steadfastness of our people in their camps in our occupied land and outside it.

The primary features of our great peoples intifada
were obvious from its inception and have become clearer in the twelve months since then
during which it has continued unabated: it is a total popular revolution that embodies the
consensus of an entire nation  women and men, old and young, in the camps, in the
villages, and the cities  on the rejection of the occupation and on the
determination to struggle until the occupation is defeated and terminated.

This glorious intifada has demonstrated our peoples
deeply rooted national unity and their full adherence to the Palestine Liberation
Organisation, the sole, legitimate representative of our people, all our people, wherever
they congregate in out homeland or outside it. This was manifested by the participation of
the Palestinian masses  their unions, their vocational organisations, their
students, their workers, their farmers, their women, their merchants, their landlords,
their artisans, their academics  in the intifada through its Unified National
Command and the popular committees that were formed in the urban neighbourhoods, the
villages, and the camps.

This, our peoples revolutionary furnace and their
blessed intifada, along with the cumulative impact of our innovative and continuous
revolution inside and outside our homeland, have destroyed the illusion our peoples
enemies have harboured that they can turn the occupation of Palestinian land into a
permanent fait accompli and consign the Palestinian issue to oblivion. For our generations
have been weaned on the goals and principles of the Palestinian revolution and have lived
all its battles since its birth in 1965  including the heroic resistance against the
Zionist invasion of 1982 and the steadfastness of the revolutions camps as they
endured the siege and starvation in Lebanon. Those generations  the children of the
revolution and of the Palestine Liberation Organisation  rose to demonstrate the
dynamism and continuity of the revolution, detonating the land under the feet of its
occupiers and proving that out peoples reserves of resistance are inexhaustible and
their faith is too deep to uproot.

Thus did the struggle of the children of the RPGs outside
our homeland and the struggle of the children of the sacred stones inside it blend into a
single revolutionary melody.

Our people have stood fast against all the attempts of our
enemys authorities to end our revolution, and those authorities have tried
everything at their disposal: they have used terrorism, they have imprisoned us, they have
sent us into exile, they have desecrated our holy places and restricted our religious
freedoms, they have demolished our homes, they have killed us indiscriminately, and
premeditatedly, they have sent bands of armed settlers into our villages and camps, they
have burned our crops, they have cut off our water and power supplies, they have beaten
our women and children, they have used toxic gases that have caused many deaths and
abortions, and they have waged an ignorance war [sic] against us by closing our
schools and universities.

Our peoples heroic steadfastness has cost them
hundreds of martyrs and tens of thousands of casualties, prisoners, and exiles. But our
peoples genius was always at hand, ready in their darkest hours to innovate the
means and formulas of struggle that stiffened their resistance, bolstered their
steadfastness, and enabled them to confront the crimes and measures of the enemy and carry
on with their heroic, tenacious struggle.

By standing firm, continuing their revolution, and
escalating their intifada, our people have proved their determination to press ahead
regardless of the sacrifices, armed with the great heritage of struggle, an indomitable
revolutionary will, a deeply entrenched national unity that has been rendered even
stronger by the intifada and its attendant struggles inside and outside our homeland, and
total adherence to the nationalistic principles of the Palestine Liberation Organisation
and its goals of ending the Israeli occupation and achieving the Palestinian peoples
inalienable right to repatriation, self-determination, and the establishment of the
independent Palestinian state.

In all this, our people relied on the sustenance of the
masses and forces of our Arab nation, which have stood by us and backed us, as
demonstrated by the wide popular support for the intifada and by the consensus and
resolutions that emerged at the Arab summit in Algiers  all of which goes to confirm
that our people do not stand alone as. they face the fascist, racist assault, and this
precludes any possibility of the Israeli aggressors isolating our people and cutting
them of from the support of their Arab nation.

In addition to this Arab solidarity, our peoples
revolution and their blessed intifada have attracted widespread worldwide solidarity, as
seen in the increased under, standing of the Palestinian peoples issue, the growing
support of our just struggle by the peoples and states of the world, and the corresponding
condemnation of Israeli occupation and the crimes it is committing, which has helped to
expose Israel and increase its isolation and the isolation of its supporters.

Security Council resolutions 605, 607, and 608 and the
resolutions of the General Assembly against the expulsion of the Palestinians from their
land and against the repression and terrorism with which Israel is lashing the Palestinian
people in the occupied Palestinian territories  these are strong manifestation of
the growing support of international opinion, public and official, for our people and
their representative, the Palestine Liberation Organisation, and of the mounting
international rejection of Israeli occupation with all the fascist, racist practices it
entails.

The UN General Assemblys Resolution 21L/43/1 of
4/11/1988, which was adopted in the session dedicated to the intifada, is another sign of
the stand the peoples and states of the world in their majority are taking against the
occupation and with the just struggle of the Palestinian people and their firm right to
liberation and independence. The crimes of the occupation and its savage, inhuman
practices have exposed the Zionist lie about the democracy of the Zionist entity that has
managed to deceive the world for forty years, revealing Israel in its true light  a
fascist, racist, colonialist state built on the usurpation of the Palestinian land and the
annihilation of the Palestinian people, a state that threatens and undertakes attacks and
expansion into neighbouring Arab lands.

It has thus been demonstrated that the occupation cannot
continue to reap the fruits of its actions at the expense of the Palestinian peoples
rights without paying a price either on the ground or in terms of international public
opinion.

In addition to the rejection of the occupation and the
condemnation of its repressive measures by the democratic and progressive Israeli forces,
Jewish groups all over the world are no longer able to continue their defence of Israel or
maintain their silence about its crimes against the Palestinian people. Many voices have
risen among those groups to demand an end to these crimes and call for Israels
withdrawal from the occupied territories in order to allow the Palestinian people to
exercise their right to self-determination.

The fruits that our peoples revolution and their
blessed intifada have borne on the local, Arab, and international levels have established
the soundness and realism of the Palestine Liberation Organisations national
program, a program aimed at the termination of the occupation and the achievement of our
peoples right to return, self-determination, and statehood. Those results have also
confirmed that the struggle of our people is the decisive factor in the effort to snatch
our national rights from the jaws of the occupation. It is the authority of our people, as
represented in the Popular Committees, that controls the situation as we challenge the
authority of the occupations crumbling agencies.

The international community is now more prepared than ever
before to strive for a political settlement of the Middle East crisis and its root cause,
the question of Palestine. The Israeli occupation authorities, and the American
administration that stands behind them, cannot continue to ignore the national will, which
is now unanimous on the necessity of holding an international peace conference on the
Middle East and enabling the Palestinian people to gain their national rights, foremost
among which is their right to self-determination and national independence on their own
national soil.

In the light of this, and toward the reinforcement of the
steadfastness and blessed intifada of our people, and in accordance with the will of our
masses in and outside of our homeland, and in fidelity to those of our people that have
been martyred, wounded, or taken captive, the Palestine National Council resolves: First:
On The Escalation and Continuity of the Intifada

A. To provide all the means and capabilities needed to
escalate our peoples intifada in various ways and on various levels to guarantee its
continuation and intensification.

B. To support the popular institutions and organisations
in the occupied Palestinian territories.

C. To bolster and develop the popular committees and other
specialised popular and trade union bodies, including the attack groups and the popular
army, with a view to expanding their role and increasing their effectiveness.

D. To consolidate the national unity that emerged and
developed during the intifada.

E. To intensify efforts on the international level for the
release of detainees, the return of those expelled, and the termination of the organised,
official acts of repression and terrorism against our children, our women, our men, and
our institutions.

F. To call on the United Nations to place the occupied
Palestinian land under international supervision for the protection of our people and the
termination of the Israeli occupation.

G. To call on the Palestinian people outside our homeland
to intensify and increase their support, and to expand the family- assistance program.

H. To call on the Arab nation, its people, forces,
institutions, and governments, to increase their political, material, and informational
support for the intifada.

I. To call on all free and honourable people worldwide to
stand by our people, our revolution, our intifada against the Israeli occupation, the
repression, and the organised, fascist official terrorism to which the occupation forces
and the armed fanatic settlers are subjecting our people, our universities, our
institutions, our national economy, and our Islamic and Christian holy places.

Second: In the Political Arena

Proceeding from the above, the Palestine National Council,
being responsible to the Palestinian people, their national rights and their desire for
peace as expressed in the Declaration of Independence issued on 15 November 1988; and in
response to the humanitarian quest for international entente, nuclear disarmament, and the
settlement of regional conflict by peaceful means, affirms the determination of the
Palestine Liberation Organisation to arrive at a comprehensive settlement of the
Arab-Israeli conflict and its core, which is the question of Palestine, within the
framework of the United Nations Charter, the principles and provisions of international
legality, the norms of international law, and the resolutions of the United Nations, the
latest of which are Security Council resolutions 605, 607, and 608, and the resolutions of
the Arab summits, in such a manner that safeguards the Palestinian Arab peoples
rights to return, to self-determination, and the establishment of their independent
national state on their national soil, and that institutes arrangements for the security
and peace of all states in the region.

Toward the achievement of this, the Palestine National
Council affirms:

1. The necessity of convening the effective international
conference on the issue of the Middle East and its core, the question of Palestine, under
the auspices of the United Nations and with the participation of the permanent members of
the Security Council and all parties to the conflict in the region including the Palestine
Liberation Organisation, the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, on
an equal footing, and by considering that the international peace conference be convened
on the basis of United Nations Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and the attainment
of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among which is the
right to self-determination and in accordance with the principles and provisions of the
United Nations Charter concerning the right of peoples to self-determination, and by the
inadmissibility of the acquisition of the territory of others by force or military
conquest, and in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions on the question
of Palestine.

2. The withdrawal of Israel from all the Palestinian and
Arab territories it occupied in 1967, including Arab Jerusalem.

3. The annulment of all measures of annexation and
appropriation and the removal of settlements established by Israel in the Palestinian and
Arab territories since 1967.

4. Endeavouring to place the occupied Palestinian
territories, including Arab Jerusalem, under the auspices of the United Nations for a
limited period in order to protect our people and afford the appropriate atmosphere for
the success of the proceeding of the international conference toward the attainment of a
comprehensive political settlement and the attainment of peace and security for all on the
basis of mutual acquiescence and consent, and to enable the Palestinian state to exercise
its effective authority in these territories.

5. The settlement of the question of the Palestinian
refugees in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions.

6. Guaranteeing the freedom of worship and religious
practice for all faiths in the holy places in Palestine.

7. The Security Council is to formulate and guarantee
arrangements for security and peace between all the states concerned in the region,
including the Palestinian state. The Palestine National Council affirms its previous
resolutions concerning the distinctive relationship between the Jordanian and Palestinian
peoples, and affirms that the future relationship between the two states of Palestine and
Jordan should be on a confederal basis as a result the free and voluntary choice of the
two fraternal peoples in order to strengthen the historical bonds and the vital interests
they hold in common.

The National Council also renews its commitment to the
United Nations resolutions that affirm the right of peoples to resist foreign occupation,
colonialism, and racial discrimination, and their right to struggle for their
independence, and reiterates its rejection of terrorism in all its forms, including state
terrorism, affirming its commitment to previous resolutions in this respect and the
resolution of the Arab summit in Algiers in 1988, and to UN resolutions 42/195 of 1987,
and 40/61 of 1985, and that contained in the Cairo declaration of 1985 in this respect.

Third: In the Arab and International
Arenas

The Palestine National Council emphasises the importance
of the unity of Lebanon in its territory, its people, and its institutions, and stands
firmly against the attempts to partition the land and disintegrate the fraternal people of
Lebanon. It further emphasises the importance of the joint Arab effort to participate in a
settlement of the Lebanese crisis that helps crystalise and implement solutions that
preserve Lebanese unity. The Council also stresses the importance of consecrating the
right of the Palestinians in Lebanon to engage in political and informational activity and
to enjoy security and protection; and of working against all the forms of conspiracy and
aggression that target them and their right to work and live; and of the need to secure
the conditions that assure them the ability to defend themselves and provide them with
security and protection.

The Palestine National Council affirms its solidarity with
the Lebanese nationalist Islamic forces in their struggle against the Israeli occupation
and its agents in the Lebanese south; expresses its pride in the allied struggle of the
Lebanese and Palestinian peoples against the aggression and toward the termination of the
Israeli occupation of parts of the south; and underscores the importance of bolstering
this kinship between our peoples and the fraternal, resistant people of Lebanon.

And on this occasion, the Council addresses a reverent
salute to the long-suffering people in our camps in Lebanon and its south, who are
enduring the aggression, murder, starvation, destruction, air raids, bombardments, and
sieges perpetrated against the Palestinian camps and Lebanese villages by the Israeli
army, air force, and navy, aided and abetted by hireling forces in the region; and it
rejects the resettlement conspiracy, for the Palestinians homeland is Palestine.

The Council emphasises the importance of the Iraq-Iran
cease-fire resolution toward the establishment of a permanent peace between the two
countries and in the Gulf region, and calls for an intensification of the efforts being
exerted to ensure the success of the negotiations toward the establishment of peace on
stable and firm foundations; affirming, on this occasion, the pride of the Palestinian
Arab people and the Arab nation as a whole in the steadfastness and triumphs of fraternal
Iraq as it defended the eastern gate of the Arab nation.

The National Council also expresses its deep pride in the
stand taken by the peoples of our Arab nation in support of our Palestinian Arab people
and of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and of our peoples intifada in the
occupied homeland; and emphasises the importance of fortifying the bonds of resistance
among the forces, parties, and organisations in the Arab national liberation movement, in
defence of the right of the Arab nation and its peoples to liberation, democracy, and
unity. The Council calls for the adoption of all measures needed to reinforce the unity of
struggle among all members of the Arab national liberation movement.

The Palestine National Council, as it hails the Arab
states and thanks them for their support of our peoples struggle, calls on them to
honour the commitments they approved at the summit conference in Algiers in support of the
Palestinian people and their blessed intifada. The Council, in issuing this appeal,
expresses its great confidence that the leaders of the Arab nation will remain, as we have
known them, a bulwark of support for Palestine and its people.

The Palestine National Council reiterates the desire of
the Palestine Liberation Organisation for Arab solidarity as the framework within which
the Arab nation and its states organise themselves to confront Israels aggression
and within which Arab prestige can be enhanced and the Arab role strengthened to the point
of influencing international policies to the benefit of Arab rights and causes.

The Palestine National Council expresses its deep
gratitude to all the states and international forces and organisations that support the
national rights of the Palestinians, and affirms its desire to strengthen the bonds of
friendship and co-operation with the Soviet Union, the Peoples Republic of China,
the other socialist countries, the non-aligned states, the Latin American states, and the
other friendly states, and notes with satisfaction the signs of positive evolution in the
position of some West European states and Japan in the direction of support for the rights
of the Palestinian people, applauds this development, and urges intensified efforts to
increase it. The National Council affirms the fraternal solidarity of the Palestinian
people and the Palestine Liberation Organisation with the struggle of the peoples of Asia,
Africa, and Latin America for their liberation and reinforcement of their independence;
and condemns all American attempts that threaten the independence of the states of Central
America and interfere in their affairs.

The Palestine National Council expresses the support of
the Palestine Liberation Organisation for the national liberation movements in South
Africa and Namibia under the leadership of SWAPO with a special salute to our brother
combatant, Nelson Mandela  against the racist regime of Pretoria; demands that the
people of the two countries be enabled to attain their liberty and independence; and also
expresses its support for the African confrontation states and its condemnation of the
racist South Africa regimes aggression against them.

The Council notes with considerable concern the growth of
the Israeli forces of fascism and extremism and the escalation of their open calls for the
implementation of their policy of annihilation and individual and mass expulsion of our
people from their homeland, and calls for intensified efforts in all arenas to confront
this fascist peril. The Council at the same time expresses its appreciation of the role
and courage of the Israeli peace forces as they resist and expose the forces of fascism,
racism, and aggression; support our peoples struggle and their valiant intifada; and
back our peoples right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent
state. The Council confirms its past resolutions regarding the reinforcement and
development of relations with these democratic forces.

The Palestine National Council also addresses itself to
the American people, calling on them all to strive to put an end to the American policy
that denies the Palestinian peoples national rights, including their sacred right to
self-determination, and urging them to work toward the adoption of policies that conform
with the human rights charter and the international conventions and resolutions and serve
the quest for peace in the Middle East and security for all its peoples, including the
Palestinian people.

The Council charges the Executive Committee with the task
of completing the formation of the Committee for the Perpetuation of the Memory of the
Martyr Abu Jihad, which shall initiate its work immediately upon the adjournment of the
Council.

The Council sends its greetings to the United Nations
Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and to the
fraternal and friendly international and non-governmental institutions and organisations,
and to the journalists and media that have stood and still stand by our peoples
struggle and intifada.

The National Council expresses deep pain at the continued
detention of hundreds of combatants from amongst our people in a number of Arab countries,
strongly condemns their continued detention, and calls upon these countries to put an end
to these abnormal conditions and release those fighters to play their role in the
struggle. In conclusion, the Palestine National Council affirms its complete confidence
that the justice of the Palestinian cause and of the demands for which the Palestinian
people are struggling will continue to draw increasing support from honourable and free
people around the world; and also affirms its complete confidence in victory on the road
to Jerusalem, the capital of our independent Palestinian state.